Researchers get to grips with effects of heat, drought and storms on carbon release.

Climate change has a disconcerting tendency to amplify itself through feedback effects. Melting sea ice exposes dark water, allowing the ocean to soak up more heat. Arctic warming speeds the release of carbon dioxide from permafrost. And, as researchers discussed at a meeting last week in Seefeld, Austria, climate extremes  heatwaves, droughts and storms  can hamper plant growth, weakening a major buffer against the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Heatwaves and droughts will very likely become more frequent in a warmer climate, and ecosystems will somehow respond, says Philippe Ciais, a carbon-cycle researcher at the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences in Gif-sur-Yvette, France. More storms will add an extra dimension to the problem.

The meeting was organized by the CARBO-Extreme project, a 3.3-million (US$4.5-million) collaboration of 27 groups from 12 countries, funded by the European Union. Attendees showed off an array of tools for uncovering how extreme events affect terrestrial carbon cycles, including numerical models, CO2 flux measurements and field experiments. The challenge now, says Ciais, is to predict how the frequency of climate extremes will change, and to model the intricate physiological responses  some of which are poorly understood  of plants and ecosystems.

Land plants create a huge carbon sink as they suck CO2 out of the air to build leaves, wood and roots. The sink varies from year to year, but on average it soaks up one-quarter of the annual CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. And events such as droughts, wildfires and storms are likely to cause a pronounced decline in the sink, says Markus Reichstein, a carbon-cycle scientist at the Max Planck...

--snip--

So far, scientists have detected no increase in extreme weather events...

"Forbes reports on a peer-reviewed study that uses NASA data to show that the effects of carbon-based warming have been significantly exaggerated. In fact, much of the heat goes out into space rather than stay trapped in the atmosphere, an outcome that started long before AGW alarmists predicted:"

That article kills any thought of planetary warming from any cause. Think about it. If there is absolutely no sign of rising sea levels how could the planet be warming? The rise in sea level in the last 100 years is almost exactly the same as the average over the last 40,000 years caused by the inter-glacial period we are in.

2
posted on 04/10/2013 10:40:17 PM PDT
by TigersEye
(The irresponsible should not be leading the responsible.)

Met Office chief scientist Julia Slingo said climate change was loading the dice towards freezing, drier weather  and called publicly for the first time for an urgent investigation. Prof Slingo said: If you look at the way our weather patterns have behaved over the past four or five years, were beginning to think that there is something happening.

As Reagan would say: “There you go again”..And here we go again with them mentioning CO2 even though the percentage of CO2 is zero point zero (0.04%) which has about as much of an effect on global warming as an ant fart.

9
posted on 04/11/2013 5:49:40 AM PDT
by GrandJediMasterYoda
(Someday our schools will teach the difference between "lose" and "loose")

Supposedly CO2 molecules are sucking up the heat and, by some deranged logic, are acting as the glass barrier would. Except there is no sign of that according to the theory itself. Ernest has posted some articles in the last few months about the "surprise" finding that heat is radiating back into space at a rate far higher than was previously "thought."

Hoax hoax hoax! It's a hoax, folks.

10
posted on 04/11/2013 1:39:10 PM PDT
by TigersEye
(The irresponsible should not be leading the responsible.)

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